Balochistan violence: Human rights ministry to form task force

Comprehensive report to include steps taken by NGOs as well.

QUETTA: The Ministry of Human Rights has decided to form a task force to probe human rights violations in Balochistan, reported Express 24/7 on Sunday.

The report will also include details on steps and measures taken by civil society and non-government organisations for tackling the acute law and order problem in the province.

The task force is being formed following the surfacing of thousands of deaths and abduction cases in Balochistan, where political workers and students are routinely found missing and then dead.

The ministry’s regional director Saeed Ahmed Khan said the task force will be formulated within two weeks. Human rights ministry’s officials also met in Islamabad earlier this week to discuss the situation in Balochistan. They also reviewed the decision to present a report on violence in Balochistan to the United Nations.

Malik, speak up: Lashkari Raisani

Senator Lashkari Raisani, from the Pakistan Peoples Party, said that Interior Minister Rehman Malik should disclose the name of elements behind target killings in Balochistan if he wants to effectively solve the problem of deteriorating law and order in the province.

Raisani was speaking to the media in Quetta during celebrations of Sindh’s cultural day when he asked Malik to reveal who was responsible for the violence in Balochistan. He said that no government official has paid any heed to the issue, despite his constant messages to senior officials.

Earlier, in a report compiled by the interior ministry’s Crisis Management Cell (CMC), it was stated that the administration has spent approximately Rs900 million so far by deploying 17 units and paramilitary troops to put an end to the disturbing trend of target killing that has only increased in Balochistan over the last two years.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2011.